Italian parties are divided on same-sex couples adopting children as the decision to ban the automatic registration of same-sex couple’s children in the civil registry has polarised the debate, with the Italian Left standing firm in support of civil rights.

Milan Mayor Beppe Sala (Democratic Party-PD/S&D) has denounced legislative gaps on the issue and called for a same-sex marriage law to simplify the adoption process for same-sex couples.

There is a need for a “very broad axis” between leftist parties to achieve greater protections for same-sex couples and their children, Sala said Wednesday at an event on the issue that the Greens organised at the European Parliament.

The event was attended by Greens co-chair Therry Reintke, PD (S&D) European Parliament delegation leader in the European Parliament Brando Benifei and Henriette Catharina Rinzema (Renew).

PD’s lower House group leader Chiara Braga announced that the party is ready to participate in this “battle of civilisation”.

On Thursday, the Danish Korean Rights Group and the 35-year-old Mia Lee from Ringsted questioned the Danish Appeals Board's investigations into adoption cases from South Korea and are now calling on the Danish Parliament to initiate an impartial investigation.

In Mia Lee's official adoption documents, she has written false from almost every line.

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Indian Council of Historical Research is looking to release records of people’s ancestors kept by genealogy priests in religious destinations; it plans to help make these records available to researchers, scholars, historians to explore stories of famines, epidemics and migrations in the past

Kapil Parasher’s 10x10 foot office room near Kusha ghat in Haridwar is lined with steel almirahs weighed down with rolls of leather-bound record books. He opens a cupboard, its glass frontage showing the many piles stacked within, and takes out a ledger. On the floor, sits a middle-aged couple waiting to find out about their ancestors. The 40-year-old Mr. Parasher, who wears a dhoti-kurta, opens the bahi (book), and leafs through what could be hundreds of pages.

In a sonorous voice, he declares that they belong to the Kahloor Riyasat, the royal family of Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh. The couple are pleasantly surprised, and the session takes barely 10 minutes.

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Rishi Singh, winner of Indian Idol 13, said he accepted the life-changing news to continue living the same life with his adoptive parents.

On Sunday, Rishi Singh was crowned as the winner of the 13th edition of the reality show Indian Idol. The young singer hails from Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Rishi, who is not formally trained, did not expect that he would go on to win the competition. Besides being named winner, the singer also learnt some life-changing news during the course of the show, when he found out that he was adopted. He spoke about accepting his truth and learning to live with it.

There were a few people who wondered about the news being shared on air with Rishi, and questioned if it was a ploy to gain votes in the competition. The singer revealed that he tried to shut out any kind of negativity and just focuses on what he had to sing each week. He also added that if he and his family, especially his parents, were aware of the truth, that's what was really important to him.

Rishi told the Indian Express, “Of course, it was big news for me and I was taken aback. I think what was most important was that I accepted the truth. That was the only way I could lead a harmonious life with my parents. Also, I think everyone has seen the bond that we share. They related to me and our story. And I think so many other families like us will get the courage to accept their truth through us.”

Kolkata's Debosmita Roy became the first runner-up, while Jammu and Kashmir's Chirag Kotwal was named the second runner-up. Besides the trophy, Rishi also received a brand new car and prize money worth ?25 lakh. The other finalists on the show were Bidipta Chakraborty, Shivam Singh and Sonakshi Kar.

When did child abuse, long considered a private matter, became a public concern? The 1874 case of ten-year-old Mary Ellen Wilson of New York City is usually considered the first great challenge to a violent tradition.

“Despite the fact that for hundreds of years history records instances of cruelty to children by parents and other caretakers, few cases of child abuse were acted on in the courts before the nineteenth century,” explains scholar Lela B. Costin.

As Costin writes, many legends have arisen about Mary Ellen, including most prominently that, on the basis her being an “animal,” the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) stepped in to save her from her vicious foster parents.

Bergh and SPCA counsel Elbridge T. Gerry decided the child was entitled to protection under the laws against animal cruelty.

When no public or private entity would step in to help Mary Ellen, Etta Angell Wheeler (“variously termed a mission worker, a tenement visitor, and a social worker”) appealed to Henry Bergh of the SPCA. The story goes that she suggested that Mary Ellen should surely be thought of as “a little animal,” too. Bergh supposedly affirmed that “[t]he child is an animal. If there is no justice for it as a human being, it shall have least have the right of the cur” to not be abused. In this legend, Bergh and SPCA counsel Elbridge T. Gerry decided the child was entitled to protection under the laws against animal cruelty.

Girl adopted by Australian couple 15 years back now searches for her biological mother in Odisha It was way back in 2007 when Mamata, who was only a three-year-old kid, was rescued from near Puri Sighadwara. Later, she was handed over to Basundhara Childcare Centre in Cuttack.

“Knowing that she is afflicted with leprosy, she took a harsh decision and let me go. She is a great mother as she did it for me so that I can lead a decent life.” These lines from a daughter for her mother are enough to melt one's heart.

These excerpts are from a letter written by Mamata, who was adopted by an Australian couple some 15 years back in Odisha, to Puri Childline Director.

Last October, 35-year-old Mia Lee found out that everything she had been told so far about her adoption was a lie. She was lied dead to her biological parents in South Korea and adopted away. In December, she traveled to South Korea and met her parents for the first time. Now she hopes that someone will be held accountable for the lie.

Mia Lee hasn't cried yet. She even had to fight back a tear when she met her biological parents for the first time because she thought it seemed cold if she didn't show a reaction. But she thinks it's due to the shock, which she hasn't had time to process yet. It has all gone so fast.

- I really have a hard time taking it in and understanding it. I think I'm still in this shock phase. I cut myself off a little from feeling it, because it is simply so extreme, says Mia Lee.

In October last year, she found out that everything she had been told so far about her adoption was a lie. She had not been given away voluntarily by her South Korean family, but had been lied to dead and adopted.

- I have always thought that I knew a lot compared to others who are adopted. In my adoption papers there are a lot of things. My Korean name, where I was born, my date of birth and the reason for adoption. Now I know that not much of it is true, she says, leafing through the adoption papers on the table.

The latest official Sri Lankan data come from 2017. Norway plans to set up an independent inquiry. In the 1970s, baby farms were popular, selling Sri Lankan babies with false papers to European couples. Some Sri Lankans remember younger siblings going missing this way.

Colombo (AsiaNews) – The Norwegian government plans to investigate adoptions from Sri Lanka going as far back as the 1980s after discovering that possibly 11,000 Sri Lankan babies were illegally adopted.

Norway’s Children and Family Minister Kjersti Toppe told the Verdens Gang (VG) newspaper that the government is setting up an independent commission of inquiry to look into the matter.

In the 1970s, Sri Lanka had several "baby farms" that sold minors to European couples providing them with false papers. In 2017, Sri Lankan authorities admitted that 11,000 children may have been adopted illegally.

Sources in Sri Lanka's Ministry of Women, Child Affairs and Social Empowerment told AsiaNews that in 2021, Romanticized Immigration, an organisation led by Priyangika Samanthie, a Norwegian adopted as a child from Sri Lanka, had called for an investigation into international adoptions.

Last year, 22 Czech children found a new home with a foreign adoptive family.

Roman Suda witnessed one of the stories about the adoption. He is the head of the children's home in Nepomuk, West Bohemia. In the domestic broadcasts of Czech Radio, he tells about two preschool-aged siblings. After nine months in the children's home, they found a new home in Italy. The foreign language was not an obstacle.

Illustration photo: Mabel Amber, Pixabay, Pixabay License Illustration photo: Mabel Amber, Pixabay, Pixabay License

“The children have an impressive ability to learn very quickly. They showed us that too. After just a few weeks in the Czech Republic, they understood Italian relatively well. An interpreter also helped. In the beginning she mediated between the two languages.”

According to Zden?k Kapitán, the story of the boy and the girl is a great success:

During the committee debate that took place in the House of Representatives last week, Minister for Legal Protection Franc Weerwind said that he wanted to 'ideally reduce the number of intercountry adoptions to zero'. Despite pressure from the COC, prospective adoptive parents and several MPs, he also insisted on phasing out intercountry adoptions from the US. Although Defense for Children believes that intercountry adoption should end as soon as possible, we are pleased that the minister spoke out loud and clear during the debate and emphatically put the best interests of the child (and no other interests) first.

US adoptions

The minister agrees with the Central Authority that the adoption relationship with the US should be terminated. He emphasizes the strict application of the principle of subsidiarity from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Adoption Convention. The core of this principle is that it is in the best interests of the child to be cared for and raised as much as possible in its own country and culture. This means, says the minister, that a child is only eligible for intercountry adoption if the country of origin does not see any possibilities to safely take the child in itself.

The US, which has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, has a different adoption system and also interprets the principle of subsidiarity differently. There is no question of a last resort: the US has ample opportunities to safely care for children itself. This is evident from, among other things, the country analysis. The US has long waiting lists for prospective adoptive parents and young children are the most sought after domestically. That is why the country is adopting (more) children from abroad. At the same time, the US is giving (fewer) children, especially babies, up for adoption. This cannot be reconciled with the principle of subsidiarity and the difference in interpretation is, as the minister rightly points out, unbridgeable. In addition, according to international publications, abuses have been reported in the American adoption system.

Adoptions from Portugal and Bulgaria